Artist: Architects
Title: The Here And Now
Genre: Metalcore / Technical Metal
Release Date: 21st January 2011
Label: Century Media
Album Review
‘The Here And Now’ is UK’s ARCHITECT’S third studio offering. Those who have heard this band before understand that they create a marriage of Metalcore, technical metal, and also rock to get their message across to their listeners while refraining from trying to be too much of a copycat of any one band. However, ‘Here And Now’ really does tend to sound a lot like a typical Screamo / Metalcore band such as KILLSWITCH ENGAGE with a trade off of harsh / clean vocals or BRING ME THE HORIZON which has excellent technical melodies amongst their chaos. Indeed, by album three this band seems to have kind of lumped themselves into the more generic side of metal since they unleashed their debut a few years ago, but fans are probably already lining up to listen to it because while it doesn’t really bring anything new, it still takes the best of the band and lays it out for everyone.
Thankfully the album is not one sided, such as just all breakdowns and screaming with hyper blast drumming. There are the typical metalcore songs with chugging and shouting all the way such as ‘Delete, Rewind’. Then there are the more balanced ones with screaming/ singing such as ‘Day In, Day Out’ with an excellent opening rock riff. ‘Learn To Live’ is pretty heavy in the metalcore music side but the clean vocals add plenty of rock bits to it, making it quite a popular and engaging song. ‘On Open Letter To Myself’ suddenly changes everything with a slow, acoustic soft song that builds up over time. ‘BTN’ is a very energetic track that’s guitar rhythms feel almost like they are punk influenced whereas ‘Stay Young Forever’ mixes metalcore with hardcore for some pure aggression for fans to enjoy. ‘Year In / Year Out’ is the most technical and possibly experimental track of the band, bordering lines of groups like PERIPHERY, and includes faded instrumentation and vocals as background support while everything is hollow and dissonant effectively.
Again, overall there is nothing really new here for fans, save for more energy and a fresh attempt to grab attention. One can certainly say that it is softer than their last album, ’Hollow Crown’, but aside from more use of the cleaner vocals, it doesn’t really do much to grab new fans. At the very least it separated them from being BRING ME THE HORIZON clones entirely… New fans may take some time to welcome this band with fresh ears and eyes, but if one had to choose this would probably be the ARCHITECT’S most balanced and insightful album to date.
Tracklist
01. Day In Day Out 3:10
02. Learn to Live 4:01
03. Delete, Rewind 3:08
04. BTN 3:58
05. An Open Letter to Myself 3:16
06. The Blues 3:17
07. Red Eyes 4:17
08. Stay Young Forever 3:02
09. Heartburn 3:37
10. Year In Year Out / Up and Away 7:27
Line-up
Sam Carter – vocals
Tom Searle – guitar
Tim Hillier-Brook – guitar
Alex Dean - bass guitar
Dan Searle – drums
Website
http://www.myspace.com/architectsuk
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 5
Sound: 6
Total: 5.5 / 10
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